Things Fall Apart

﻿Q: “A text is only valuable if the lessons arising from it are worthwhile” – discuss this statement with close reference to Things Fall Apart

An intrinsic aspect of reading any text is the process of evaluating its worth, both as it is read, and once it is finished; the response to a text is usually based, to a large extent, on whether it is seen as providing a valuable lesson. Chinua Achebe’s 1958 novel about traditional life and colonisation in Nigeria, Things Fall Apart, has been widely regarded as a modern classic, and its success can be attributed to the fact that despite its specific context, the lessons it provides about tradition, change and identity are meaningful for any audience, within any context. By considering the way that Achebe develops poignant lessons about the impact of external forces on individual identities, we can see why this text is considered so valuable across national, cultural and historical boundaries.

Through the novel’s protagonist, the well-respected and successful warrior Okonkwo, Achebe depicts a strong identity, resistant to change. The reader encounters Okonkowo as someone whose “fame rested on solid personal achievement"; his sense of identity is based around his own accomplishments and the recognition of those by his society. Indeed, Okonkowo is motivated to act in an especially masculine way because his father had been ridiculed for his feminine behavior – his strength of character is tied to his fears of social persecution. However Achebe emphasizes that, in Igbo society, "a man was judged according to his worth and not according to the worth of his father", and as such, the novel suggests that a strong identity is something that will be respected regardless of other social factors. This is further underlined by the appearance of missionaries, and the coming of Europeans to the novel’s central community. Here, although Okonkow is finally killed, he is elevated to a heroic register, because of his resistance to...

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...Chinua Achebe’s ThingsFallApart is a story that describes the effects of a new Christian religion in a tribal village of Africa, called Umuofia. The novel is set during the late 1800s to early 1900s when the British were expanding their influence in Africa, economically, culturally, religiously, and politically. The book shows the colonization of Umuofia by the British and the negative and violent changes this brought about in the lives of the tribe members. Along with colonization was the arrival of the missionaries whose main aim was to spread the message of Christianity and to convert people to their religion. The conversion to Christianity of tribal peoples destroyed an intricate and traditional age-old way of life in the village. This is best seen in the rise and fall of the protagonist, Okonkwo, who could be understood to represent the best and worst of his culture. Eventually, Okonkwo can be seen as the symbol of the disintegration. Through the tragedy of Okonkow, one can see that that a failure to adapt to a changing society, can cause even the strongest and proudest of men to fallapart when it appears to them that everything around them is falling apart to. ThingsFallApart is a tireless tale of human’s nature’s ultimate struggle with evolution**
” The general vision of this this novel is how the cohesiveness and...

...Women in Chinua Achebe’s ThingsFallApart
“ThingsFallApart” by Chinua Achebe, portrays the Ibo society of Africa before the arrival of the white man. The novel depicts the Ibo culture and religion while Achebe weaves the Ibo language, myths and ideas into the English world and approach. It familiarizes the reader with the Ibo society as it also explains the role of women in pre-colonial Africa.
The role of women in the Ibo society:
Achebe shows how the patriarchal structure has been entrenched in the Ibo culture and only represents how it exists; people must evaluate the woman’s status themselves
Women have little to no power-cannot stand against the husband’s mistreatment
“And when [Ojiugo] returned he beat her very heavily. In his anger he had forgotten that it was the Week of Peace…It was unheard of to beat somebody during the sacred week” (Okonkwo severely beats his beats his wife due to a conflict of minor significance. (Not being home during dinner). The only reason he is punished is because it is the week of peace.
No social power: “Without looking at the man Okonkwo had said: “This meeting is for men.” The man who had contradicted him had no titles. That is why he called him a woman” (26).
Women are not allowed to do beyond what they are told. (Social repression)
Patriarchy:
“’The world is large…I have even heard that in some tribes a man’s children belong to his...

...Thingsfallapart by Chinua Achebe is published in 1958. Achebe is a Nigerian author. It is seen as the archetypal modern African novel in English. The title of the novel comes from William Butler Yeats poem “The Second Coming”. The novel depicts the life of Okonkwo, a leader and local wrestling champion in Umuofia—one of a fictional group of nine villages in Nigeria, inhabited by the Igbo people (archaically, and in the novel, "Ibo"). It focuses on his family and personal history, the customs and society of the Igbo and the influence of British colonialism and Christian missionaries on the Igbo community during the late nineteenth century.
The theme of a novel is the driving force of the book during its creation. Even if the author doesn't consciously identify an intended theme, the creative process is directed by at least one controlling idea — a concept or principle or belief or purpose significant to the author. The theme — often several themes — guides the author by controlling where the story goes, what the characters do, what mood is portrayed, what style evolves, and what emotional effects the story will create in the reader.
Igbo Society Complexity
From Achebe's own statements, we know that one of his themes is the complexity of Igbo society before the arrival of the Europeans. To support this theme, he includes detailed descriptions of the justice codes and the trial process, the social and family rituals, the...

...﻿Title: The Perils of Colonialism; Insight into the Everyday Life of the Ibo people and the Impact of the Europeans.
Written By: A.R.W.G.
“ThingsFallApart”, written by the late Nigerian Author, Chinua Achebe, is a book written in the view of an African native that sheds light to the effects of colonialism and the common misconceptions of the colonized due to a lack of cultural appreciation. Achebe places the reader in the shoes of the protagonist, Okonkwo, to guide them through the everyday life of Ibo society. Although on a much greater perspective, Achebe guides the reader through the everyday life of the Ibo people and their collective situation, while depicting the beauty and faults of Ibo culture at a time when things rapidly start to fallapart due to the existential impact of European colonialism. Chinua Achebe wrote “ThingsFallApart” under the influence of “Discourse on Colonialism” (Aime Césaire , 1950) and “Black Skin, White Masks” (Frantz Fanon, 1952). In his book, he dared to challenge the concept of racist writing towards the effects of colonialism depicted by the ‘West’ by being open with his criticisms of literary ‘blindness’ to racist writing.
Achebe does not introduce the reader to colonialism until the near end. It is not until the reader has a chance to appreciate the details of the Ibo culture and put themselves in...

...ThingsFallApart by Chinua Achebe is a story about personal beliefs and customs, and also a story about conflict. There is struggle between family, culture, and the religion of the Ibo, which is all brought on by a difference in personal beliefs and customs of the Igbo and the British. There are also strong opinions of the main character, Okonkwo. We are then introduced to the views of his village, Umuofia. We see how thingsfallapart when these beliefs and customs are confronted by those of the white missionaries.
The authors full name is, Albert Chinualumogu Achebe also known as Chinua, he was born on November 16, 1930 in Ogidi, Nigeria. He is a product of both native and European cultures. This has a great effect on the telling of the story. He attended Government College in Umuahia from 1944 to 1947 and University College in Ibadan from 1948 to 1953. He then received a B.A. from London University in 1953 and studied broadcasting at the British Broadcasting Corp. in London in 1956. He joined the Biafran Ministry of Information and represented Biafra as a diplomat. Since then, he has taught variously at the universities of Nigeria, Massachusetts, and Connecticut.
Achebe wrote ThingsFallApart partly in response to what he saw as inaccurate
2
characterizations of Africa and Africans by British authors. The book was...

...ThingsFallApart, by Chinua Achebe contains a great deal of information about Igbo society. From this novel we can learn much about how people in Igbo society lived. It details customs, traditions, religion, and the class structure of the society. Achebe strives to give people a look into Igbo society, especially for those who have never been introduced to this culture before. Achebe’s novel also gives us insight into the arrival of colonialism in Africa, as Achebe himself was born in Nigeria and experienced colonialism. Specifically, we will see that colonialism represents a major shift in the way of life of the Igbo people. The way of life of the Igbo people comes into conflict with the views of colonial rule. In addition to literature be Chinua Achebe, many other sources can be useful in understanding the effects of colonialism in Africa.
The novel ThingsFallApart, by Chinua Achebe gives great insight into Igbo society. The main character Okonkwo lives in the village of Umuofia. As we soon find out, Igbo society is male dominated. When a woman from Umuofia is murdered by a member of a neighboring village, all the men are gathered in the market to decided the village’s course of action (Achebe 11). The men debate the best course of action, showing that Umuofia contains a form of direct democracy. Justice in Umuofia is explored through the trial between Mgbafo and...

...About ThingsFallApart
Chinua Achebe's college work sharpened his interest in indigenous Nigerian cultures. He had grown up in Ogidi, a large village in Nigeria. His father taught at the missionary school, and Achebe witnessed firsthand the complex mix of benefit and catastrophe that the Christian religion had brought to the Igbo people. In the 1950s, an exciting new literary movement grew in strength. Drawing on indigenous Nigerian oral traditions, this movement enriched European literary forms in hopes of creating a new literature, in English but unmistakably African. Published in 1958, ThingsFallApart is one of the masterpieces of 20th century African fiction.
ThingsFallApart is set in the 1890s, during the coming of the white man to Nigeria. In part, the novel is a response and antidote to a large tradition of European literature in which Africans are depicted as primitive and mindless savages. The attitudes present in colonial literature are so ingrained into our perception of Africa that the District Commissioner, who appears at the end of the novel, strikes a chord of familiarity with most readers. He is arrogant, dismissive of African "savages," and totally ignorant of the complexity and richness of Igbo life. Yet his attitude echoes so much of the depiction of Africa; this attitude, following Achebe's depiction of the Igbo, seems...

...ThingsFallApart Essay
Chinua Achebe’s “ThingsFallApart” leads the reader to reflect on his own traditions, society and religion, and examine the revolution of the Ibo culture into today’s Western culture. Close analysis of this books reveals that Achebe is working using a parallelism system- he is reflecting today’s society in the complex form of Ibo culture. The book discusses the struggle in Umofia between change and tradition, which is a question often pondered by those today. Those who do question what is traditional are often shunned in both cultures. While these cultures may contrast and appear to be wildly different, they both share the same message: Conform to what is standard, with regards to traditions, society, and religion, or else risk being alienated.
The social class system today, in comparison to Ibo culture, is arranged differently, but the principles remain the same. Although we no longer formally have “ranks”, it can be argued that the same system remains today, sans the names. In a way, Western culture appears to be more cowardly than Ibo culture in regards to this. In Ibo culture, ranks are not something they are ashamed of. They embrace the fact that they have a solid social class system. In modern times, society likes to pretend that everyone is free to be how they are, when in reality, it is just the same, but hiding behind the notion that there are no...